Aging Boxer Poem by Erik Menkveld

Hauls himself much like an overfull
suitcase into the drawing room,
coquettishly wags his meat croquette,
spins on his axis
does it again
lies down on the smyrna

and some thirty years later
I don't know where I saw him
at which occasion, with whom,
only that he looked at me
until I thought: I could have easily
been him, and not just
him, that carpet too,
that club chair,
that teak buffet . . .

Translation: 2005, Willem Groenewegen